Tag: anarchy

There’s been a lot of talk in the media lately about “self-regulation.” Despite broad support from the business community and a large number of our learned legislators, can it be possible that the contraction is a dangerous contradiction? To wit:

The counter salesperson at Sunrise Tactical Supply was self-regulating when he or she sold an AR-15 assault rifle to a mentally unstable nineteen-year-old, who then murdered three Parkland teachers and fourteen high-school students with it. Civilian ownership of semiautomatic assault rifles was banned until 2004, when an enlightened Congress overturned the law and let self-regulation take over.

President George Walker Bush (43) was self-regulating when he ordered the invasion of Iraq. More than 4,000 American soldiers and 100,000 Iraqi civilians died in the war. For the record, Congress hasn’t issued a formal Declaration of War since 1941. Maybe they should rethink their approach.

The FDIC, aka the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, shuttered more than 350 banks in the three years after the Crash of 2009. The bankrupt banks self-regulated themselves out of business.

Congress was self-regulating when they awarded themselves lifetime pensions at age 62 after five years of service. Presumably, America’s workforce can expect to benefit from similar legislation in the near future.

Self-regulation is working in Idaho, where the maximum interest rate that payday lenders may charge their customers is unlimited by law. Thanks to the government’s hands-off, laissez faire policy, the average payday loan in the state carries an annualized interest rate of only 582%.

Cain was self-regulating when he killed Abel. The Ten Commandments came later.

For the record, we don’t believe it makes sense to regulate every little act of meanness or stupidity. Picking one’s nose at the dinner table and dipping the outcome in the clam chowder will have a detrimental effect on most appetites, but Congress doesn’t need to pass a law that forbids it and create another three-initial bureaucracy to enforce it.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s a word that means the absence of regulation. It’s called “anarchy. “ A civilized society like ours has to draw the line between anarchy and a four-hundred-year-old body of law that is suffocating, ambiguous, contradictory, and costly. But when we redraw the line, we need to be honest with ourselves.

Self-regulation is a myth, a con. It’s identical to no regulation. If you still have doubts, ask the surviving students and faculty at Santa Fe High School.